GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

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GNU Make

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and Jenkins compete in automation and build management. Jenkins has an advantage with its extensive plugin ecosystem and CI/CD capabilities.

Features: GNU Make is known for handling dependency graphs and rules efficiently. It supports static pattern rules for source compilation and integrates with third-party dependency builders. Jenkins features an extensive set of plugins, offers advanced CI/CD functionalities, and integrates with various tools, enhancing its extensibility.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could enhance its GUI and modernize its declarative syntax to support advanced automation needs. Jenkins requires improvements in initial configuration complexity and its extensive reliance on plugins can make troubleshooting time-consuming. Better native support features could streamline workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GNU Make is easy to install, requiring minimal configuration and providing a lightweight solution. Jenkins demands more setup effort, but benefits from comprehensive documentation and community support, offering scalable orchestration suitable for large projects.

Pricing and ROI: Both GNU Make and Jenkins are open source without direct setup costs. GNU Make provides a reliable ROI for simple builds. Jenkins offers scalability and automation efficiencies, which justify potential higher initial investments in configuration and maintenance.

To learn more, read our detailed GNU Make vs. Jenkins Report (Updated: September 2025).

GNU Make vs. Jenkins

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Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

GNU Make

Ranking in Build Automation

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Jenkins

Ranking in Build Automation

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.1%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Jenkins	9.1%
GNU Make	1.0%
Other	89.9%

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer2561757

Software at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup

GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…

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Annamalai Pts

DevOps Engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Streamlined CI/CD pipelines with powerful integration and an easy setup

I use Jenkins as a CI/CD tool. We create pipelines using Jenkins, with stages for Maven builds, Docker image builds, SonarQube integration, and deploying the image to a Kubernetes cluster, AWS EKS Jenkins has made the developers' work very easy. They commit to the remote repository, and…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."

"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."

"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."

"Setup is extremely straightforward."

"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."

"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."

"I like that you can find a wide range of plugins for Jenkins."

"Jenkins is particularly valuable since it saves time by automating manual tasks."

"Jenkins' most valuable feature is Pipeline."

"Automation of chores like deployment, frequent manual tasks (like running scripts on test and production systems) reduced the time used and the number of errors made by engineers, freeing them to do meaningful work instead."

"A lot of support material exists via a single web search of exactly what you're looking for."

"We used it for all continuous integration parts, like automation testing, deployment, etc."

"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."

"Has a good interface, is reliable and saves time."

More Jenkins pros

Cons

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."

"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."

"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."

"It does not have a very user-friendly interface."

"The product should provide more visualization as to how many pipelines are performing and how many builds are happening. It should also integrate with Kubernetes and OpenShift."

"Creating a new SonarQube project requires a separate job, and we've encountered some integration issues with Docker and the need for better vulnerability checks."

"Performance-wise. This needs to be improved. Not only performance-wise, some functionality or some features can be added to Jenkins."

"The scriptwriting process could be improved in this solution in the future."

"I would like them to provide space for people to have a central node that stores all the logs of workspace information in a distributed fashion to facilitate backup and restoration. Currently, everything is stored on one node, so you need to set up distributed storage or an endpoint that you can use for backing up your information."

"There are some issues with Jenkins, especially with the SIP job."

"The user interface could be improved, and its reporting capabilities need enhancement. The plugins could be more effective."

More Jenkins cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."

"GNU Make is free and open source software."

"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."

"Jenkins is open source and free."

"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."

"The tool is open-source."

"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."

"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."

"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."

"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."

More Jenkins pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user184734

Systems Administrator at Facebook

Jan 22, 2015

I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.

Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?

GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.

What needs improvement with GNU Make?

I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.

What is your primary use case for GNU Make?

How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?

When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...

What do you like most about Jenkins?

Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?

Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.

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Comparisons

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Compared 36% of the time

GitLab vs Jenkins

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Harness vs Jenkins

Compared 14% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Jenkins

Compared 9% of the time

TeamCity vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs Jenkins

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Build Automation

Download GNU Make product report

Download Jenkins product report

Overview

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

GNU

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox

GNU Make vs. Jenkins